Virgil Griffith, a former Ethereum (ETH) developer has been sentenced to 63 months in prison and will pay a fine of $100,000 for attending a conference and assisting North Korea use blockchain technology in contravention of economic sanctions imposed by the United States.

On Tuesday, April 12, U.S. District Judge Kevin Castel of the Southern District of New York handed down the decision. Judge Castel stated that “what you see here is intentionality, a deliberate, willful intent to violate the sanctions' regime,” adding that the crime was made worse because Griffith had a “desire to educate people on how to evade sanctions.”

In September 2021, Griffith pleaded guilty to conspiracy to violate the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, a law banning U.S. citizens from exporting any “goods, services or technology to the DPRK (North Korea) without a license from the Department of the Treasury, Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC).”

In early 2019 Griffith was unsuccessful in gaining permission from US authorities to travel to North Korea, but in April, he went anyway and visited the capital of Pyongyang for the “Blockchain and Cryptocurrency Conference”.

At the conference he gave presentations dressed in a North Korean suit about how the country could use cryptocurrencies to evade sanctions and launder money. He also presented methods on how smart contracts could be used to benefit the country in nuclear weapons negotiations with the U.S.

In an attempt to lower his sentence Griffith's defense team provided evidence of factors which may have caused him to act irrationally. They presented a psychological assessment of Griffith which showed him suffering from both Obsessive Compulsive Personality Disorder (OCPD) and